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During these uncertain times, you may find yourself borrowing jigsaw puzzles. I hate to borrow anything, but I don’t own any puzzles, and looking online I see that pretty much anything rated age 6 and above is back-ordered to around 2025. Some neighbors were nice enough to loan us a few. We worked on them for days, only to find at the end that pieces were missing. […]

One little-discussed provision of the pandemic relief bill is that all ad copy and commentary must begin with the words “during these uncertain times.” So. During these uncertain times, I’ve been reading a lot of Agatha Christie. I got the idea after my favorite podcast host, Phoebe Judge, decided to read a chapter a day of Christie’s first book, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles.” I’d read most […]

We’re about a month into this now. Amazing what you get used to. Amazing what’s changed and what hasn’t. We’re still eating pretty well. (Thanks, WalMart Pickup!) We still go for walks and enjoy the good weather. We got through the wretched Tiger King, but still have a long queue of books and Netflix recommendations from equally bored friends and family. We’ve still got Zoom, with all […]

There’s no need to read any of this. We’re all going through the same thing, all reading the same stuff on the internet. I can’t offer any fresh insights on American life in the time of Covid-19. I’m just writing here because I’ve finished the new season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and the last murder mystery I had on the Kindle (The Perfect Couple, three stars). So. […]

I owe Mitt Romney an apology. Of course he’s never heard of me and never will, but I’ve long been one of those snide, cynical voices on Facebook and Twitter, quick to ridicule the man as an out-of-touch plutocrat (running against Obama in 2012), a soulless opportunist (dining at Trump Tower in 2016), and just another generic kisser of Trump’s ample ass (2018 up to about three […]

I just finished John Le Carre’s latest: “Agent Running in the Field.” It’s a pretty good book for those who like literate spy stories, but to me it’s noteworthy for at least one other reason: It’s the first time I’ve explicitly encountered the dark and dimwitted presence of Donald J. Trump in popular fiction. Probably won’t be the last. Trump is not a character, thank God. But […]

Last Friday I was driving up I-95 to see my daughter and her girls in Virginia. Somewhere south of Savannah a gleaming red Mercedes coupe with New York plates swept by on my left. It was car to remember, even more so because there was an enormous cream-colored cat lounging the back window, calmly observing all the other northbound motorists. It seemed very relaxed for a cat […]